Last week you saw some grim pictures taken by a health inspector while the Chi clan was being rounded up for prosecution, which was instigated by a bunch of folks getting food poisoning after eating food from a supermarket in Garden Grove. At the time, Roland’s plea deal was an unknown, forcing us to speculate on how he managed to wriggle out of the criminal charges levied against him.
But now we know the whole story.
A businessman knows how to close.
In April Roland had struck a deal with the District Attorney that would allow him to escape the 5 counts against him, which added up to a frightening maximum sentence of 2.5 years in jail plus fines.
According to the barely-legible excerpt below, the charges against him were dropped because his co-owners pled guilty and Roland Chi agreed to provide a DNA sample for Rackackaus’ infamous DNA database.
The Orange County DNA database allows the District Attorney to keep track of the defendantly-inclined population by exchanging dropped charges for a personal specimen that could later be used to identify the suspect in the event of any future incidents.
Just think of it as a small donation.
Of course, the whole thing is pretty embarrassing for a candidate who keeps trying to cast his “business experience” as a positive for Fullerton voters. Heck, as far as I can tell, the only business Chi’s ever been involved with almost got him thrown in jail for criminal neglect, and then left a little part of him locked up in a vial somewhere, just in case he does it again. Chi must think the bar in Fullerton is really, really low.
Here’s a fun repeat-post from last spring – featuring two of 4SD Observer’s favorite idols: emergency service providers and the dim-witted Pam Keller. For sheer fat-headedness, selfishness, and fiscal irresponsibility, you just can’t beat the ESP union.
– Joe Sipowicz
Pam Keller was the only city council member who did not have the guts to impose a %5 pay reduction on members of the Fullerton firefighter’s union after negotiations failed on Tuesday. The union refused to accept a deal similar to those offered to all other Fullerton employees.
The union says the pay cut is unfair. Is that true? Let’s see what firefighters actually took home last year:
In addition to the gross pay numbers above, firefighters receive the following estimated benefits at the city’s expense:
Pension contribution: ~30% of base salary. Ranges from $15,000 to 28,000/yr, not including unfunded liabilities
Medical: $5,460 to $14,748/yr
Dental: $588 to $1,128/yr
Not a bad gig. It’s no wonder there are hundreds of applicants whenever a position opens up.
Does Keller really think that asking this highly compensated group of public employees to take the same pay cut as everyone else was “unfair?’
Us public employees gotta watch out for each other.
Or perhaps Pam is just sticking to what Pam does best: Helping folks suck as much as possible out of the public trough. By any means, at any cost.
The reaction was visceral. And not in a good way...
The other day Fullerton City Council candidate, carpetbagger, and food poisoner Roland Chi sent out a press release touting his “volunteering” to educate folks about some So Cal Edison program. Despite the hilarious lack of actually doing anything, or even thinking up anything for himself, Rolando decided to hop onto some idea barfed up by the power monopolists at Edison.
It didn’t take long for an unhappy citizen to respond to this vacuity. And fortunately they cc’d FFFF:
Sent: Mon, September 27, 2010 4:40:42 PM Subject: RE: PRESS RELEASE- CANDIDATE CHI VOLUNTEERS FOR ENGERY & COST SAVING PROGRAM
Dear Roland,
This is a joke, right? Are you seriously taking a tax and spend model based on a false premise of enviromental protection that this utility company has subscribed to and a.) claimed it as your own, and b.) trying to pass it off as pro-small business? Wow. That’s pretty crazy.
The “ratepayers” (residential and commercial) paid extra on their bills and then the company redistributes it by installing different lights, toilets, programmable thermostats, etc. in commercial buildings.
That neither shows “innovative leadership” nor “advance(s) business development locally.”
If you are looking for innovative leadership, try doing something that YOU came up with, not someone else. And if you are trying to help local business development, how about reducing the size and influence of government and quasi-government entities (i.e. utility companies) not encouraging it.
This seriously made me laugh. Keep the liberal policies coming.
And here’s the text of the comical “press release:”
PRESS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
DATE: SEPTEMBER 26, 2010
Contact: Roland Chi, Fullerton City Council Candidate
Office: (714) 889-8880
E-mail: RolandChi4Fullerton@gmail.com
CANDIDATE ROLAND CHI ASSISTS FULLERTON
BUSINESSES IN SAVING MONEY AND ENERGY BY
VOLUNTEERING TO INFORM OWNERS OF FREE SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA EDISON INITIATIVE
*Chi is running for Fullerton City Council’s 2-year seat
FULLERTON – City Council Candidate Roland Chi volunteered to inform Fullerton business owners of Direct Install, Southern California Edison’s (SCE) new, energy-saving program. Chi’s efforts in conjunction with the City of Fullerton and Fullerton Chamber of Commerce to facilitate the awareness and participation of local owners in such programs, demonstrates his innovative leadership and commitment to advance business development locally.
As Fullerton continues to experience economic hardships, it makes it especially challenging for small businesses to profit, let alone survive. As a local business owner, Chi understands what owners are facing by having to cut costs and operate cautiously due to continuing revenue loss. To revitalize local business, Chi’s new ideas, initiative, and strong “blueprint” are necessary for short-term local economic improvement.
SCE’s new initiative seeks to lower energy costs for small-business owners by recommending and installing up to $10,000 worth of energy-efficient products at no cost to owners. For a business to qualify, it must be nonresidential and within SCE’s service territory. Direct Install is funded by California utility ratepayers and is administered by SCE and will remain available to business owners until all funds are exhausted. The program is available to any qualified business whose monthly earnings are less than $100,000.
Chi, SCE, and the Fullerton leadership organizations who participated in this imitative, understand the benefits of programs like Direct Install, which foster active dialogues and partnerships between businesses and government, establishing an openness and trust that enables more efficient City improvements.
“I chose to volunteer for this program because this initiative aligns with everything my campaign is about which is improving the business climate for local business owners here in the city of Fullerton. This program directly improves the bottom line of small businesses which is what I seek to do on the city council.” Chi’s business-minded approach will enable local owners to re-invest, prompt growth, generate revenue, and attract new business, thus creating new jobs.
Chi’s participation in Direct Install demonstrates his dedication to advancing local economic interests by fostering open dialogue with owners, integrating new ideas, and utilizing all available resources. “I will ensure Fullerton’s remains a great place to live, work, and raise a family.” For more information about SCE’s Direct Install please call (800) 736-4777. Further information about Candidate Roland Chi is avai lable at www.rolandchi.com or by e-mailingroland4fullerton@gmail.com. VVV
Over the week-end we received an e-mail from none other than Fullerton Council candidate, Bruce Whitaker. It seems Bruce wanted to respond to a couple of rather pessimistic posts by our bloggers The Desert Rat and English Major. Here’s what Whitaker had to say:
Subject: Game On!
I’ve been reading some posts and comments here that are “doom and gloom” regarding Fullerton’s future. And while there are many reasons for concern, there are solutions.
Taxpayers/residents/small business owners and those (and there are many) who support rational public policy, objective decisions and open, ethical government: There is still time to put your shoulder to the wheel of my campaign!
If you believe and lament that the outcome of this election is already decided . . . I submit that now more than ever, you should consider helping me to attain a seat on the Fullerton City Council.
Even if we do not agree on every issue, you should consider voting for me for the following reasons:
I believe that a councilmember should ensure openness; invite public input; demand fair and thorough deliberations and hearings; avoid conflicts; continuously conduct independent research and exercise due diligence that would keep him/her fully informed and prepared regarding items coming before the City Council.
Your councilmember should be available, be a good listener and treat the public with respect. A good City Council represents the people in the process, not the agendas of special interests which would work to the detriment of the people.
You can be assured that I will “speak up” when confronted with unethical, harmful or wasteful acts in our city government while representing you as a member of the Fullerton City Council.
Please visit my website for a closer look at my candidacy – www.brucewhitaker.com
and review Fullerton Planning Commission meetings which are archived on the City of Fullerton website.
Last week we presented this hilarious dialog between a distraught taxpayer and a union firefighter, which became an instant hit across the country. While the clip had no problem making it onto the workstations of public agencies far and wide, we also had many requests for a G-Rated version.
Despite our concern that self-censorship may inhibit the fine directorial talents of our anonymous Oliver Stone, he was happy to oblige:
Of course, most will probably prefer the original profanity-laced version here: Stop the Madness Now!
After reading the Desert Rat’s pithy and mordant post about the likelihood of having three antiquated and liberal repuglican geezers on the Fullerton City Council, I felt compelled to respond with my own message – a message of hope and good will to those who can only contemplate Ed Royce’s RINO triad with a sense of gorge-rising horror.
No, I will not dwell upon the morbid actuarial statistics for the American male. Rather I invite the Friends to contemplate, along with me, the New Reality. My grandfather Frank always admonished us to seek out the proverbial silver lining in bad news; and so we shall. The Economic Recession that has hit so many in the private sector, and that so far has barely affected the public sector at all, will, in 2011, deliver its overdue bill to government employees.
Can Obama keep cranking out money fast enough to preserve all the government jobs it has protected so far through the comically named American Recovery and Reinvestment Act? The answer to that is likely no. Not after the November election. And even if he could, California had received barely 10 billion through the end of the last fiscal year – not nearly enough to grease all the bureaucratic skids in our dysfunctional state at the various levels. The presses just can’t print that fast.
The chances of raising local taxes, like Don Bankhead did (and McKinley and Jones would have likely joined him) in 1993 seems dim. Nobody’s going to stand for it. Not even the ignoramuses who voted them in.
And this leaves us with the spectacle of the public employees fighting among themselves for their share of the diminishing fiscal pie. And to that I say: Amen! Competition is good. It causes us constantly to assess our priorities. It’s true that the cops and emergency service providers will have the advantage, standing, as they already do, at the head of the line. But will the public stand for library or park closures in order to fund these people? The RINO mantra of “public safety” can only take its chanters so far. Sooner or later reality demands a check.
And hovering in the back of the room, like the chorus in a Greek tragedy is the specter of municipal bankruptcy, Vallejo-style – the game changing possibility that all public administrators and employees should want to avoid like a plague. But the public may have reason to be more ambivalent about that prospect.
Out here on Screech Owl Road, east of Twentynine Palms you can see things pretty clearly. Sometimes the heat causes shimmer mirages; sometimes the wind kicks up some devilish sand storms – the kind that can strip the chrome off your Hummer. But most of the time you get used to seeing a long way. Even as far away as my former home, Fullerton.
Pudding cups!Banacek called. He wants his clothes back.
The City Council race of 2010 is already over. You will re-elect the brain dead sea cucumber known as Don Bankhead – pension spiker, staff stooge, abysmal decision maker. And you will also elect Pat McKinley – poster boy for pension abuse, supporter of the hideous Ackerwoman, repuglican de-jour, and yet another retired cop. And it won’t even be close.
Bankhead, Dick Jones, McKinley; please contemplate that triumverate of septuagenarian, lint-headed, RINO back washers and tell me why you aren’t in deep shit. Can anyone say gerontocracy?
In the two-year seat Bruce Whitaker has a chance, but let’s face it: he’s up against a bankrupt and a carpetbagging food poisoner. Really, I don’t see how he can pull it off.
Aw, none of those folks died...
Fullerton, the Education Community, has a special knack for electing the weak, the feeble-minded, the incomprehensible. Jeez, do I have to draw you a diagram? Molly McClanahan, Buck Catlin, Julie Sa, Peter Godfrey, HeeHaw Jones, Mike Clesceri, Leland Wilson, Pam Keller. This rougues gallery of incompetence even starts to make Jan Flory look good. Well, no, cancel that.
That’s what members of Fullerton’s police and fire unions get from us.
Almost all of the candidates are talking about pension reform now, but they don’t quite have their figures right. According to the city’s HR Director, public safety employees currently pay 2.557% of thier salaries towards their multi-million dollar retirements, while taxpayers pick up the rest. This year, we’re paying an additional 29.752% of their salaries towards their retirements, and it’s set to shoot much higher.
In private-sector terms, that’s equivalent to an employer 401(k) match of 1200%. That’s twenty-four times the average out here in the real world.
Plenty of bad ideas were tossed about at the candidate at the forum on Monday night, but this one from council hopeful Doug Chaffee takes the cake:
So according to Chaffee, doubling the hotel tax in the middle of a recession will bring more hotels and visitors into the area. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of logic behind his idea, but perhaps that’s why he calls it “magical.”
Chaffee pushes the idea further by suggesting that Fullerton should “generate” (aka subsidize) a new hotel to compete with Disneyland, the most famous theme park in the entire world.
Gee, another one?
Of course we’re later reassured by Chaffee that the tax would only be tacked on to “other people” who make the mistake of taking brief refuge in our city. That’s the old divide-and-conquer tax scheme that’s plagued California businesses for a long time: levy heavy taxes against each industry, one at a time. Who’s next?
Hey Doug, a tax is a tax, and there has never been a worse time to raise taxes. And quit trying to convince us that we should be more like Anaheim.
This press release just came over from the Greg Sebourn campaign:
With a 2/3 margin, the Orange County Republican Party’s Central Committee voted to give Greg Sebourn the Party’s endorsement. The vote came after a 5-0 recommendation from the Endorsement Committee just two weeks ago.
“The Orange County Republican Party stood up and spoke. Clearly they want to further advance the Party’s platform which speaks of limited government, lower taxes, and the power of the entrepreneur,” says endorsed council candidate Greg Sebourn. “The Party has recognized that being a Republican In Name Only, or RINO, does nothing to advance the conservative movement. RINOs are what have turned off so many good conservatives from the Republican Party.”
The endorsement comes just days after Sebourn received endorsements from the California Republican Assembly (Fullerton), the North Orange County Conservative Coalition, and the Fullerton Tea Party. Greg Sebourn is also endorsed by Assemblyman Chuck DeVore, Assemblyman Chris Norby, and Supervisor Shawn Nelson.
Greg Sebourn has distinguished himself from the other 4-year candidates with his promises to not take the City’s pension and medical benefits, to close down the Fullerton Redevelopment Agency, and reform the City’s broken and unfunded pension system.
If you would like to meet Greg Sebourn, please attend the grand opening of his new campaign headquarters, Tuesday, September 28, 5:30PM, at 511 S. Harbor Blvd. , Fullerton 92832 . The headquarters is being shared by Assemblyman Chris Norby, Bruce Whitaker (candidate for the 2-year seat), and Chris Thompson (candidate for the Fullerton School Board) all of whom will be on hand to speak with.
More information about Greg can be found on the campaign website at www.gregsebourn.com.
